For Gen Z, it is fun to be ‘chronically online,’ but college students spend about eight to ten hours a day on screen time. So, when does digital mastery turn into digital burnout?
When we think of our modern world and how we navigate it, technology is at the forefront. Younger people are much more equipped with technology than older generations. However, are we becoming too chronically online? As college students become reliant on their phones and laptops for their education, relationships, and entertainment, they risk throwing their lives away to their phones.
Are College Students Harming Their Mental Health?
Picture this: it is approaching summer, and you are planning a nice picnic date with all of your college friends. You set up the food, the drinks, and the activities to do together. You all love the thought of sunrays and nature as a way to escape your digital lives. However, in reality, the picnic turns into TikTok making, Instagram posting, and texting others. How can young people learn to put their phones down?
When we think about the extended use of phones and popular apps like TikTok and Instagram, these feed more and more into poor mental health. Being chronically online means you overuse apps such as TikTok and Instagram. They spread toxic messages about body image and create low self-esteem in many college students. Many college students can develop body dysmorphia, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and feelings of isolation from extended screen time use.
Also, many students have increased procrastination when it comes to their work. It is much easier to distract yourself with a small device, with endless entertainment just a touch away. As a student, it is very hard to focus when your laptop has Netflix and other platforms to watch rather than essay writing.
Also, having FOMO for what your friends are doing on social media can lead to procrastination and feelings of negativity that you are not there. Endless scrolling and algorithm-driven content can create dopamine loops, making many college students and young people crave constant engagement with social media.
If a lot of our attention spans and feelings of restlessness and anxiety are constantly increasing when we are not chronically online, we become addicted to them. So, how can we stop the digital manipulation of our mental health and finally put the phone down?
‘Digital Detox’ Superiority As A Trend
Many Gen-Zers are faking their digital detox and spreading their new phone-free life online instead of enjoying it. There is a trend where many people are trying a new aesthetic called ‘digital minimalism’ which exemplifies this. Many people online may feel superior to those who are not chronically online and promote a digitally minimal lifestyle. This includes doing more work than others, using social media less, and posting about this.
However, this is damaging. Many young people may use their platform to guilt trip people who are not as productive as them.
A psychologist named Cameron Sepah coined the term “dopamine fasting.” He presented a solution to reduce excessive use of the internet and social media. Using social media can provide young people with hits of dopamine. By abstaining from social media entirely and from other forms of instant gratification, we become less reliant on it to be happy.
However, completely removing what provides us with dopamine, or trying to become more tolerant to dopamine, does not help.
In reality, “dopamine detoxes” do not make sense as fasting yourself from dopamine completely will harm you. It cannot be a permanent fix. We need platforms like TikTok and Instagram to provide us with fun, such as checking in on friends and watching fun videos. It is how much we use it and not getting rid of it completely, which we should aim for.
How to Detox from Constant Scrolling
There are a lot of things your phone can do to help you become less chronically online such as lower your screen’s brightness and adjust the colours to more eye friendly colours, such as warm tones, to avoid eye strain. Having your phone in a greyscale during the day also help you to detox from your phone. This is due to the lack of bright colours which grab your attention and focus on grey scale which will make you more likely to search for colour and excitement in the real world.
Here are a few offline activities you can do:
- Being outside.
- Exercise.
- Playing games which are not online with friends, e.g. Twister.
- Going to on-campus events.
- Joining a society/club.
There are even events held in cities in the UK which can help with a digital detox:
Other places, such as Amsterdam, offer phone-free hangouts that can facilitate more social interaction with friends. In the café called ‘The Offline Club,’ phones and laptops are not allowed—just coffee, conversation, and community. They have accumulated more than 260,000 followers on Instagram in just a few months. This is an easy way to do something new, find new friends, and have fun without your phone.
How To Go From Chronically Online to Just Online?
However, it also doesn’t have to be as complicated as finding offline cafes. If you are a chronically online student, it is also easy to implement a few ways to cut down your screen time, such as finding new hobbies, trying to identify which apps are causing the most harm to your mental health, and viewing devices such as your laptop as more ‘work’ devices than social ones.
It is easy to say that we will completely eliminate social media from our lives. However, this is impossible. It is healthy to find a balance between the positive aspects of social media and the positive aspects of life.
For example, college students can cut back a few hours a day on TikTok and put some dedication into their college course and their friends. This can help distract college students from the social media sphere. It engages them in their community and social life, separate from Snapchat or Instagram.
Overall, we will never get to a phone-free world. However, this is not what we want! Technology and social media can be fun for students and older people alike and healthy for our mental health if we use them right.
